CALEDONIA – It was a light work-week for the Caledonia Pro-Fit Corvairs with only one game on the schedule, that being Thursday night, Dec. 1, in Thorold, Ont., which the Corvairs won 7-2.
Once again, as has become common with the Corvairs over the past few years, Caledonia outshot the opponent quite handily, 51-26 with their four-line attack.
Blackhawks got the hometown crowd into it at 9:19 of the first period with Brendan Charlton scoring the first goal of the game. Just as the Blackhawks started thinking about taking a 1-0 lead into the second period, Josh DeFarias tied it up with 30 seconds remaining in the period assisted by Ryan Punkari with 30 seconds remaining.
Quentin Maksimovich stunned the Blackhawks at 24 seconds of the second period with a short-handed goal assisted by DeFarias and Christian Papineau. They closed out the second period the way they began, with a short-hander scored by Trent Mallette from Zach Core and Guy Polillo, with less than a minute remaining.
With 20 minutes left and the Corvairs leading 3-1, the Blackhawks began testing the physical resolve of the Corvairs, inciting reaction resulting in Thorold’s Francesco, Ryan Smith and Bryan Kelly all being tossed with Game Misconducts along with Caledonia’s Jamey Lauzon.
But on the scoreboard, Lauzon, Holden Hrysko, Maksimovich and Christian Polillo build up a 6-1 score before Curtis Zahorodni added Thorold’s last, but meaningless second goal for the 6-2 final score.
The lunch-bucket Corvairs will be back on the job Friday, Dec. 9, in Niagara Falls before hosting Pelham in Caledonia, and shuffling off to Buffalo Tuesday Dec. 13. If the Corvairs are on their game, this should be a six-point week for the division leaders.
Niagara Falls is 19 points behind Caledonia while the Pelham Panthers struggle along with six wins against 16 losses and 4 OT losses. And they are not the worst. That dubious honour belongs to the Buffalo Regals who are still looking for their first win as a franchise after 27 starts.